Gear transmissions are typically used in motor vehicles, and multiple speed ratios allow the engine characteristics to be best matched to the required gradient launch, acceleration, top speed, fuel economy and other well understood factors. Gear pairs are typically in constant mesh, and are engaged and disengaged by synchromesh mechanisms which incorporate dog clutches. Manual selection of the required speed ratio is common, but some gear transmission variants have automated or assisted selection, or have fully automatic speed ratio selection.
In order to achieve good acceleration and fuel economy, the number of speed ratios have increased in recent years, and for some vehicles as many as eight or more forward speed ratios may be provided. Inevitably, these additional speed ratios tend to increase the size of the transmission, which is problematic for vehicle designers where the available space envelope is restricted. A particular difficulty with in-line transmission (so called North-South alignment) is of ingress into the passenger compartment.
Another objective of vehicle designers is to design components for a range of vehicles, so a substantially common base component is modified to suit the particular attributes which are required of each vehicle in the range. In one extreme example a common component, such as a vehicle transmission, may be required to serve in both a sports car and a vehicle having off-road capability. The base component may be simple and have features added thereto, or it may be complex and have features deleted.